Gold set for 3rd straight weekly gain
Silver eyes best week since early Dec
Gold biased to retest support at 1,917 technicals

March 17 Reuters Gold advanced on Friday, buoyed by a weaker dollar, and was poised for its biggest weekly gain since midNovember as a global banking crisis sent investors flocking to the safehaven metal.

Spot gold was up 0.7 at 1,931.90 per ounce, as of 0747 GMT. Bullion has risen about 3.4 this week, heading for a third consecutive weekly gain.

U.S. gold futures rose 0.7 to 1,936.10.

Bullion prices have jumped more than 5, or by about 100, on safehaven demand after the collapse of U.S.based Silicon Valley Bank last week.

Large U.S. banks injected 30 billion in deposits into First Republic Bank on Thursday to rescue the lender caught up in a widening banking crisis. This came after Swiss lender Credit Suisse said it would borrow up to 54 billion from the Swiss National Bank to shore up liquidity.

The banking crisis seemed supportive for gold because it led to… the general sense that with this market risk and with credit stress, central banks might back off on hiking rates, said Ilya Spivak, head of global macro, Tastylive.

But the European Central Bank raised interest rates by 50 basis points bps on Thursday, as concerns over high inflation outstripped fears of the banking crisis.

U.S. central bankers are seen pressing on with their inflationfighting campaign with a 25bps rate hike at their March policy meeting.

The opportunity cost…